Trump Reinstates Federal Executions

[Yukaphile]

You can never tell, can you? People lie, and the art at detecting lies isn't a perfect, exact science and won't be for centuries, and even then will require big societal discussions on what is and is not considered privacy. Like, do we scan somebody's brain? Obviously only somebody accused, but do they then retain the right not to be scanned? Though that will be held against them?

[Admiral X]

That's why evidence that can be objectively examined is so important.

[Yukaphile]

The limitations of our current technology, which is ironic given to the people of 5,000 years ago it'd already seem as if we were gods, make that impossible. Someday, they will remove that limitation. But it's not now and won't be for centuries.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Sounds more like Charles Bronson in Death Wish to me.

Except he said he's against doing it for sadistic revenge.

Instead if he's doing it for personal retribution that him or others might agree with, then that's totally different.

[Yukaphile]

It's what he wants, but our system of checks and balances will still ensure he cannot.

[Riedquat]

+Riedquat THE LEGAL SYSTEM IS NOT PERFECT.

Yes, I know. But pointing that out doesn't lend legitimacy to vigilantes, who would most likely be even further from perfect.[/quote]

See, the legal system can fail, and if a man was tried through the courts and found not guilty when there were witnesses and so on and so forth and it was just a bureaucratic fuckup, then I won't begrudge somebody wanting to kill him. Kill him, of course. Not torture. I think there should be limits even to this. You seem to want to trust authority, but authority is not 100% precise or infallible. They are going to make mistakes. So you need to balance that for the human need for justice, to see these crimes avenged. I think that's deeply important for us if we ever wanna move forward.

For that to work then you've got to have a great deal of confidence of doing a better job than the justice system in correctly identifying the criminals and not mistakenly labelling the innocent as guilty. Do you really want "Well we all knew he was guilty, no point in a trial!"

[Riedquat]

No, what fueled lynch mobs was racism, plain and simple. Unless you mean if a pedophile was acquitted from the legal system, in which case, sorry, I'm NOT going to feel guilty for him. Torture is going too far, but even then, I won't feel sorry.

You've decided that he is a paedophile there, whatever the court says. That's prejudice, literally.

[Yukaphile]

It's an imperfect world. Sometimes, the crime is so unjustified and evil, and they never pay for it, you gotta take matters into your own hands.

In some cases the defendant was guilty as hell. Look at OJ. If somebody knocked him off, I wouldn't feel sorry.

Not prejudice. That said, a legit righteous lynch mob in which the courts have failed? I could get behind. It's an imperfect world, like I said, and sometimes you need imperfect solutions.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

You know lynching is a federal crime?

[Admiral X]

Anyone ever watch the old Star Wars fan film "Troops"? They parodied the reality TV show "COPS", including their opening. Of course their version of "all suspects are innocent until proven guilty in the court of law" was instead "All suspects are guilty. Period. Otherwise, they wouldn't be suspects, would they?" This to show how warped and evil the Empire was. Kind of surprising to see how many people actually think that way.